Truck Stop restaurant plans stopped in tracks

June 6 2014 — Weeds rise through the cracks at the planned location of The Truck Stop, a restaurant which would allow guests sit inside and order meals from food trucks parked outside. The Cooper Young Business Association put the brakes on the Truck Stop restaurant due to plan changes by the two investors. (William DeShazer/The Commercial Appeal)

The Commercial Appeal

Temporary plans to open the novel Truck Stop Diner in Midtown as a patio served by food trucks were rejected by a city agency.

The decision by the Memphis and Shelby County Office of Code Enforcement apparently disrupts Memphis entrepreneurs Taylor Berger and Michael Tauer's plans to open the new attraction at 2121 Central.

Berger and Tauer will have the opportunity to appeal the rejection on June 25 before the Memphis and Shelby County Board of Adjustment.

Meant to be a hip restaurant offering on an edge of the Cooper-Young district experiencing new commercial life, Truck Stop Diner's original plans were approved in January by the adjustment board.

Later the entrepreneurs revised the plans and presented the new proposal to the code enforcement agency. Under the original plan, Truck Stop Diner would have food trucks park outside and prepare meals for diners seated in a new building staffed with waiters.

In the revised version, Berger and Tauer requested a temporary permit to put a patio on a concrete slab and bring in the food trucks, but delay putting up the building and accompanying landscaping for a year.

The request for a temporary permit was denied May 31 by the Office of Code Enforcement because there was already a plan in place for the property approved by the board of adjustment in January.

Josh Whitehead, planning director for the Memphis and Shelby County Office of Planning and Development, said his agency will examine the two-step proposal if the matter is appealed to the adjustment board.

"Me and my staff will gather community comments, review the proposal and write a recommendation for (the Board of Adjustment's) hearing," Whitehead said. "We will likely be recommending rejections. Although, that is not to say they will take our suggestion."

June Hurt, president of the of the Cooper-Young Community Association, said she has reservations about the two-phase plan.

"First we don't know how long (the property) will be like that, even with the one year proposed in the plan," she said. "If it would only be like that for six months it was one thing, but it really can't stay like that."

The Midtown Memphis Development Corp. supported the original Truck Stop plan, but opposed the phasing in development, said president Sam Goff.

"We thought it was a nice development," Goff said.

The guidelines of the Unified Development Code and the Midtown Overlay do not allow for phasing developments in such a way, Goff said. He also did not like the lack of sidewalk and curb improvements.

"They want to operate it as a commercial operation for a year without creating those enhancements — that's a nonstarter," Goff said. The lack of a building means no restrooms, which Goff found unacceptable. "Port-o-johns, Really?" he said.

Derrick Clark, current president of the Food Truck Association, said he views the proposed diner as a potential rival.

"I don't think it is a good spot. It will cause conflict between the brick and mortar Cooper-Young places and our trucks," he said. "We can pass through the area but to compete directly like that would be bad."